Humberto Guglielmin, DNI 10,401,180 (reduced text)
White Bay
The two great national holidays usually have a religious commemoration in the Metropolitan Cathedral, to thank God for the blessings granted in the past and to ask that His protection accompany our rulers and the people in the future. It is a strictly, exclusively religious celebration, frequently solemnized by a choir, if there is one. This religious hymn in the Latin language begins with the words “Te Deum” (To you God…). This hymn of praise and gratitude to God for his goodness and protection is usually sung when there are very important reasons for celebration. The Te Deum is an ecumenical hymn, a prayer to the one God shared by all monotheistic religions and not objected to by non-believers.
In Argentina, the celebration of the Te Deum is a tradition that should not be interrupted because the objective of the ceremony is to unite all Argentines in a prayer to God to thank God for his blessings, implore his mercy for our faults and ask for his protection over our lives. homeland. It should not be the occasion for accusatory homilies that only serve to divide. This celebration should in no way lose its exclusively religious character.
The already expected recriminations of the Church against the government that are made every Te Deum, in general admit some observations:
a) Only the Executive Power is in the temple; The Judicial Branch is lacking and, especially, the Legislative Branch is lacking; there will perhaps be some of its members. The government is made up of the three powers of the State but sometimes, one or both, systematically resort to obstructionism, preventing the Executive from complying with the government plan that the people wanted when they appointed it, and it is not fair to criticize only the Executive for what it is. responsibility of the three powers of the State.
b) These recriminations assume that the person who makes them is in a position of moral superiority with respect to the person being criticized, and that the things that he recriminates against others do not occur in his institution.
c) When recriminations are made without taking into account the entire context of the moment, such as the inheritance received – from any government – and the obstacles presented daily by the opposition, whether from Parliament or from the unions, they make that these criticisms, in addition to being insufficiently founded, leave open the possibility that the person in question uses his right of reply and explains things with more information and leaves his critic in a very bad light. That is what Alfonsín did 35 years ago, when the military vicar publicly accused him that there was corruption in his government. With great height, the response that Alfonsín gave him was lethal.
The Te Deum of this May 25 was hardly different from the previous ones. This time the complaints were made by the new Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, whose authority to lecture on social or political issues is more than debatable.
As a member of the Church and following the Pope’s advice to “make trouble” when objectionable things are observed within the Church, I have the right to give my opinion and plead that the Te Deum ceremony be an exclusively religious and ecumenical ceremony, and that it serve to unite Argentines and not to confront each other.
